At least 1,300 applicants from around the world have applied for one of six spots in the inaugural class of Billings Clinics Internal Medicine Residency Program, which is designed to train primary-care physicians.

About 200 of the applicants are U.S. graduates; the balance are from all corners of the globe.

Only 100 or so candidates will be invited to interview on the Billings Clinic campus. The grueling process began Tuesday and will continue into January.

In addition to the six internal medicine residency slots, four additional spots will be reserved for applicants who need only a one-year clinical base before going elsewhere to train in a specialty area such as radiology, ophthalmology, dermatology and anesthesiology.

The Internal Medicine Residency Program is the first of its kind in Montana and Wyoming. It was accredited earlier this year for three years by the Chicago-based Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the maximum length of time for an initial accreditation. It was one of only four internal-medicine residency programs in the country to achieve accreditation.

At full capacity, the residency program could be producing as many as six new doctors a year.

The hope is that those new doctors will choose to practice in Montana, where most counties have a shortage of primary-care physicians and 10 counties have no physician at all.

The program will open to the first class of students in July 2014.

Dr. RogerBush, program director, is pleased with the sizable number of applicants but not surprised.

With healthcare reform and the growth in the number of medical school graduates, theres a lot more demand for these types of physicians than there was a few years ago, Bush said. Ten years ago, not very many people considered general internal medicine or primary care, now it looks like its going to be much more popular.

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Billings Clinic draws worldwide interest in its Internal Medicine Residency Program